Chan in Jerry Lewis Remake, Leoni Joins JP3
August 9 -- Chew on this, Jackie Chan fans: Your hero is about to spin-kick his way into a remake of a Jerry Lewis movie. Hey, it worked for Eddie Murphy.
Variety reports that the star of Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon is in final talks to join MGM's revised take on The Bellboy. If he signs on to make the pic, Chan would stay in his Rush Hour and Noon mode and share top billing with a co-star, to be named later.
In the original film, which marked Lewis' directorial debut, the telethon pitchmeister plays a bellhop at a posh Miami Beach, Fla., hotel who gets himself into and out of several amusing scrapes. Lewis controls the remake rights and hence will be among the new version's executive producers, a role he's filled on both of Murphy's Nutty Professor flicks.
With Chan stepping into Lewis' shoes, it seems likely that the script is due for some major tweaking. Or not: Could it be that Jackie's finally getting a little too old for this crap and is looking to make less strenuous films? Nah.
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Also in final film role negotiations is Tea Leoni, who's getting back into the action groove she last found with Bad Boys. Instead of running from bad guys, however, this time around, Mrs. David Duchovny will be dodging dinos.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Leoni is zeroing in on Jurassic Park 3, which is set to begin filming later this month in Hawaii. Leoni will follow in the footsteps of Laura Dern, Jurassic Park's female lead, and Julianne Moore, who foot-raced velociraptors with Jeff Goldblum in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
JP3 plot details are being kept under lock and key, naturally, but the cast is certainly intriguing: Leoni will reportedly play the love interest to a wealthy industrialist played by William H. Macy, and Sam Neill will reprise his role as a paleontologist from the first film. Rising indie star Alessandro Nivola (Mansfield Park, Love's Labour's Lost) will also have a role, as a graduate student working with Neill's Dr. Alan Grant.
Joe Johnston will be directing the new Jurassic flick, assuming the duties handled by Steven Spielberg on the first two films.
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